What is ArtsFest?
Festival History
ArtsFest 2007
We Love ArtsFest


What Is ArtsFest?
ArtsFest is Birmingham’s biggest & most vibrant cultural festival! ArtsFest celebrates the astounding wealth of creative talent existing in the West Midlands and promotes the region as the bustling cultural centre it is – full of high quality, innovative, cutting edge arts and entertainment activities. ArtsFest is a festival for the young and old alike and we really do stick by our motto that there is something here for everybody!

ArtsFest takes place annually and most importantly, it’s completely FREE.

Now you can’t get much better than that can you!

Festival History
Inspired by the UitMarkt festival in Amsterdam, ArtsFest was designed in 1998 to ‘excite and intrigue audiences’ by the sheer magnitude of what was on offer by local artists and to build new audiences for these artists of the region.

Until 2004 ArtsFest was co-produced by Birmingham City Council and Audiences Central, an audience development and research agency dedicated to increasing the numbers and expanding the range of people participating in the arts in the West Midlands. The concept of ArtsFest was jointly developed by both organisations. Since 2005 ArtsFest has been solely produced by Birmingham City Council where it has continued to grow in size each year. Without doubt, ArtsFest is one of the most exciting arts events of the summer!

ArtsFest 2007
Taking place in Birmingham City Centre over the weekend of 14th-16th September, ArtsFest 2007 involved 380 artists or organisations, 3680 individuals within these and 486 performances, workshops or exhibitions. 8 outdoor areas were incorporated into the festival site with 29 indoor venues opening their doors to the public and 6 outdoor stages in the premier city spaces of Centenary Square, Brindleyplace, Chamberlain Square, Victoria Square, The Arcadian Centre and Millennium Point.

Integrated into ArtsFest 2007 was the city’s popular Discovery Day Trail which encouraged audiences to have their programme stamped at 16 of the city’s major civic and arts venues to enter into a prize draw. The festival presented 3 headline events: the opening concert Indie Invasion, featuring up and coming ‘made in the Midlands’ bands, in Centenary Square on Friday evening; Classical Fantasia for which flagship companies City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Birmingham Opera Company collaborated together on Saturday evening in Centenary Square; and Blast! a powerful evocation of Birmingham’s industrial heritage using sound, light and fire on Friday and Saturday evenings at Curzon Street Station.

The ArtsFest 2007 programme covered a wide range of arts and cultural activities – from the flagship companies such as Royal Shakespeare Company and those mentioned above to a host of bands, choirs, youth dance and theatre companies and individual artists. All art forms were represented and there were a whole host of opportunities to participate.

Around 200,000 people attended ArtsFest 2007 over the course of the weekend.

We Love ArtsFest!
Since its beginning ArtsFest has been truly unique within the UK. Everything is free, nothing can be pre-booked by audiences and almost everything lasts only 30 minutes. This means that you can see ballet to Bhangra, dub poetry to indie rock, without having to spend any money, queue for hours or leave your own city! What’s more, being City based this urban festival comes without mud!

So whether you are a regular attendee of the arts looking for a little inspiration, or simply want to give the arts a try – ArtsFest is the festival for you so come and give it a go and love it as we do!